Origin of a Villainess
by Aeslehc
Summary: This is based off my level 30something main villain on the Virtue server, her past, and her early, more innocent days as a villainess.
1. Chapter 1

(This is based off my level 30-something main villain on the Virtue server, her past, and her early, more innocent days as a villainess. I don't own City of Heroes/Villains or any of the things (characters, etc. associated therewith) Please don't sue me. :-P)

**Chapter One- Childhood**

I'm betting things would have been different if I'd been born in hospital like most other kids. Some nice, sterile environment with a lot of fat-faced nurses and horn-beaked doctors that slap you on the ass when you come sliding out. Someplace _normal. _Do you know where I was born? Can you take a _guess_? No, I wasn't born in a car. NO, I wasn't born in a Wal-mart, damn it. I was, apparently, born in the middle of a pool hall, on one of the tables, while my mother still had a beer in her hand. It's no wonder people think I'm just a little screwed up, you know? Chances are I spent a great deal of my womb-time pretty freaking drunk.

They were on the lamb at the time, my mom and dad. Well, mostly my mom. She had a few 'gifts' that made living in polite society a bit difficult, particularly when you take into account that she used them to fricassee her older brother to the ceiling of her parents' bedroom. They kept hopping from place to place to place. My dad, the ever-normal, mousy computer repairman, was getting tired of it and slowly growing a pair of balls, even in the face of my volatile, fire-wielding mother. Eventually, he grabbed me and a couple of suitcases and hopped a plane into the night. I wasn't even a year old, then, and don't actually remember much, except for the airplane ride. They say you're not really supposed to remember _anything_ from before you were three or so, but I remember that flight clear as if it'd happened yesterday.

Dad sat next to the window, staring out the entire time. I was in something like a car seat beside him, pleasantly oblivious to what was going on. A storm brewed outside, the sound of thunder seeming to shake the plane. There was pain as my ears violently popped. My father never once looked over at me, even as I screamed and cried and the people around us complained in a language I was too young to comprehend. The storm was creating turbulence. I was afraid. In my infantile language, I was screaming for him to make it better. He never turned to look at me. Though, after a moment, he began talking.

"She'll turn over the world to find you, Ani. And she'll kill me when she does. I owe it to you to get you as far away as possible. I'll take care of you."

I didn't understand enough words to really get most of what he was saying, but the last sentence stuck with me and I believed it with all my ignorant little heart. _I'll take care of you_. I cherished that promise for the first five years of my life.

We left the country when I was three in the hopes that my mom wouldn't know where to look for us, moving to a sovereign cluster of islands known as the Rogue Isles. Dad got us a place in the lowest income area of Mercy Island- in a top story apartment of a building surrounded by gang violence and vicious, mutant snakes. Not exactly the ideal place to raise a daughter, but it was the best he could do with what he made. He was hoping to break away from the computer repairman gig to work for Arachnos as a computer tech, but the fact of the matter was…Dad just didn't have the right stuff to work for those people. He couldn't even stomach the gangs around the area we lived in. There was no way he could work for an organization of villains and Arch-villains, even at the most basic employment level. He made due with his hourly wage and worked sometimes as much as 80 hours a week so we could get by.

When Dad worked his longer days, I usually stayed with an eccentric, incense-burning neighbor that liked to call himself _Papa Os_. I don't remember much about the man specifically except that he wore a lot of bones and cut apart a lot of chickens. I even remember him letting me chop off one of the legs once. Aided, of course. No one in their right mind would let a little girl hold a knife on her own. Funny how the dead chickens never bothered me. I didn't have an actual concept of blood or death until I was quite a bit older. It didn't occur to me to be disturbed by it. Papa Os was a strange man, to be sure, but a good enough babysitter. I never went hungry or got bored when he was around and I always went home to my father in one piece. After two years of safely living next door to him, he started taking me out to help with his 'errands' while Dad was at work. Mostly, my help consisted of carrying around things he'd pick up for his peculiar rituals and magic. The gangs left us alone, at least the ones with territory close to the apartment building, and most of the members were actually quite respectful if we came into direct contact. The mutant snakes were positively terrified of him and tended to leave us alone as well. If he wanted snake venom or fangs, he would use his magic to pick one of them off from afar and frighten away the others as he extracted what he needed.

It never occurred to me to wonder exactly why Papa Os, the powerful Skull Bone Daddy, would want a naïve, desensitized five year old girl wandering around with him.

My father was the one to bring it up once he found out exactly who and what the man was. It was damn odd for a gang leader to be a babysitter, unless they wanted something from the child. And Papa Os, in the two years he'd been taking care of me, never once did anything untoward or horrible.

"'de girl, she 'as power." He admitted when my father approached him, "I sense much inside 'er. Fire and black, black darkness mon…. If she release it now, she coul' be de most powerful girl in de Isles by de time she twenty."

My father was furious. By the next day, we'd moved to the other side of the Island. I was angry and hurt. I didn't understand and my father made no attempt to explain it to me. I missed Papa Os. For a week, I screamed my head off and threw violent tantrums at unpredictable and inconvenient times. All he would do was shake his head and tell me that I was gifted with my mother's temper and nothing more. I very nearly had given up when a new idea came to me. I knew where Papa Os lived….I could slip out while Daddy was asleep and go find him on my own.

The plan didn't really turn out as I'd have hoped. Our new apartment/hovel was in Hellion territory and apparently knowledge of my untapped capabilities wasn't exclusive to Papa Os and his Skulls. Three blood brothers caught me not fifty feet from home, bound and gagged me, and dragged me off to their hideout. I was afraid, to an extent, but I trusted that my father would come and find me soon enough. Regardless of the fact that I'd practically run away and he'd be angry…my father would come and take care of me, like he promised he'd always do.

The hideout was a warehouse full of old boxes and broken forklifts. The only light came from burning barrels and the occasional errant fire, lit by laughing pyromaniacs. I kept looking to the big metal doors, expecting my father to come bursting through. They sat me in a chair, tied me to it, and took the gag from my mouth. A lean, very tall man with burning eyes was staring me down. I looked up at him without a fearful tear in my eye.

"…you guys sure this is the girl?" He asked at last. The others nodded wordlessly, "…and she didn't do nothin' to defend herself?"

"We didn't really give her a chance, boss."

The thin leader bent down and, with fire in his hands, burnt the rope away from the chair, freeing me. He took a step back, eyes on me, as if waiting for something. I shook off the ropes, stood, and stared up at him blankly. He pulled a gun from his waistband and leveled it at my head.

"Show us what you can do, kid," He said. I continued to stare up at him without a clue. My eyes went back to the doors. My father would rush in soon. He'd save me. The leader thumbed back the hammer on the gun, "You'd better show us soon, brat, or that pretty red hair of yours is going to be a whole new shade."

"She don' know what she can do, mon." The deep voice came from the flickering shadows behind the tall Hellion. I looked over to the blood brothers, who were wrapped in tendrils of darkness and unable to move or speak. Papa Os stepped into view, a white mask drawn down over his face, a satchel hanging heavy in one hand.

"Come any closer and she's dead," The tall man said, placing the barrel of the gun against the skin of my forehead. It was cold, very cold. I looked back to the men in the hold of darkness. It was contracting around them. I could see their faces contorted in horror and agony and hear their bones snapping as the tentacles drew tighter around them. The gun very suddenly wrenched from the Hellion's hand with such a force that the fingers around it snapped audibly and the man let out a scream before turning on Papa Os with a burst of flame.

The Hellion was dead before the fireball even hit the old Bone Daddy, so much negative energy suddenly shooting through him and tearing at his soul that he continued to writhe on the ground even after he'd stopped breathing. Papa Os simply patted the fire from his hair and approached me. He opened the satchel and removed a vial of what appeared to be blood.

"Stand still," He said as he dabbed the blood on his finger and began to make markings on my forehead. My eyes kept sliding to the doors. I trusted Papa Os, but Daddy would be very angry when he came if he saw this.

"What are you doing…?" I asked. He put the blood away and pulled out a similar vial, one that almost looked like watery milk. Thinking on it now, I'd like to avoid taking a guess of what it probably really was. He repeated the process of dabbing it on his finger and marking my forehead. He shushed me, put the milk away, and pulled out a slender, gnarled root. "How did you find me?"

He placed his hand against the mark on my head and lifted his mask with the other hand. He winked at me, "You di'nt tink I'd let you get away, eh? Dese eyes been watchin' you. Now hush….dis might hurt." The root held in his other hand, he began chanting under his breath.

I didn't feel anything at first. Just his hand against my skin and the kindling warmth of a nearby trashcan fire. After a moment, however, the outside, kindling warmth seemed to actually spread into my body. It was as if my blood was being warmed and was getting warmer. It grew warmer and hotter and I could feel it moving through my veins, almost dancing. The heat became sharp, white hot pain through my entire body. My blood felt like it was boiling. The tears that streamed from my eyes at the pain came out as steam. When I opened my mouth to shriek and cry out, Papa Os stuck the thin root in my mouth and ordered me to chew it. Sobbing and shaking, yet unable to move, I obeyed. It tasted like beets, but I concentrated on chewing the root into mash, focused my energy and mind into it. Anything to get away from the boiling agony.

"Eat de root." He said softly. As soon as I swallowed the mash, it felt as if a shock of cold water had been shot inside of me, cooling the inner fire and soothing the pain...yet leaving with me a cold, dark chill. I stared up at him in shock, hurt, and suspicion. What had he done to me? Papa Os merely patted me on the head, "Clean up, child. Papa Os will make sure ya get 'ome safe."

I washed up in an abandoned bathroom near the back of the warehouse, though it took some scrubbing to remove the blood from my skin. It was almost as if it had been cooked to me. I stared at myself in the cracked, dingy mirror. Even with the blood and milk washed away, I could see the odd, arcane design in the form of a red welt on my forehead. I hoped it would go away soon. I could still feel the cold chill in the pit of my chest after having eaten the root. It was better than the pain of what had happened before, but it was still very unpleasant.

"What did you do to me?" I asked as Papa Os walked me home, "...I feel cold, Papa Os."

"Dat will go away, child. Jus' be patient an' trust ol' Papa Os. I know what I doing."

But I didn't know what he was doing. I didn't know what he had done until I got home.

I let myself in with my own key. My father was still in his room sound asleep, oblivious. I snuck into my bedroom, closed the door, and switched on my light. After so much darkness, the sudden shock of brightness stung my eyes a little. I blinked it away and went to my dresser to change. It was then that I heard the shattering of glass as something was hurled through my father's bedroom window. There were gunshots. My father yelling.

I ran from my room into his, to find him bleeding from several gunshot wounds and two Skull gang members standing over him. I didn't think I only reacted. The familiar hot feeling shot through me again, without pain this time, and my hands began to explode with fire. I was screaming. Crying. I was scared and didn't know what I was doing, but I knew that it would get the men out of my home and away from my father. They were burning and shrieking and the fire kept coming from my fingertips. A sharp pain broke my concentration and killed the flames. A cold warmth spread through my shoulder, dulling the pain of the bullet wound. The empty chill in the pit of my chest began to act, to move. Like the flames, it spread through my hands and spilled out towards one of the two men, the only one still alive, though still on fire. It wrapped around him, passed through his body and came back to me. It wrapped around me, wrapped around my father. I felt the dull pain of my own wound vanish completely, the bullet clattering on the ground as it was pushed from my body. My father was going through a similar process, the miasma taking the life force of the dying gang member to heal his wounds. I stood stock still as the screams finally faded, the smell of charred flesh hanging heavy in the air. Trembling, I turned to my father, who only stared in terror.

"...Daddy?"

"No...no...no..."

"Daddy...?"

The words became mouthed whispers as he scrambled to his feet, away from me. He didn't blink. I stepped closer and he moved away. He turned and bolted from the room, from the apartment.

"Daddy!"

I ran after him, practically flew through the door...out into the empty night. He was gone. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I remembered his promise. He'd take care of me. He'd be back. He had to come back. He promised. I fought the tears and went back inside, pushed the corpses through the window, and curled up on the bloody, charred bed to sleep. He'd be back in the morning, I was sure of it.

But my father wasn't there when I woke up. I was sure he'd come back the next day or the next. Soon the days turned into a week. The food in the kitchen was running low. Two weeks...I was eating saltines and ketchup. By the time the rent was due and the landlord came to find my father gone, I'd run out of food, but not hope. My father would come find me, even if I couldn't stay. As is the way of things in the Isles, I was evicted from the apartment not by a notice or by the sheriff, but at shotgun point. I had nowhere to go. The landlord didn't care. He had a window to fix, after all.

What else could I do? I went back to Papa Os, who had an all-too-knowing smile on his face when I arrived.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A Preteen

I grew up in the care of gang members obsessed with death. They were my protectors, my older brothers, my friends. And Papa Os was, for all intents and purposes, my new father…though I still held out a waning shred of hope that my Daddy would come back and find me.

I learned to wield a handgun when I was nine, a shotgun when I was eleven. I'll always prefer the shotguns. Easier to aim, even if they are a bit slower. My only problem was just that…my sense of aim. My eyesight's never been the best, so I was always a little off if my target was far enough away. I made up for that by using a yellow solution concocted by Papa Os that I dropped into my eyes. It sharpened my vision for a short period of time so I could focus, shoot, and kill. My first murder was a week after I turned eleven. A member of the rival gang had wandered onto our territory one night and the old bone daddy and his boys decided it was time for their girl to 'earn her bones'. They sent me, eleven years old and armed with a shotgun, alone to face the stray Hellion.

Looking back, I can see why he was laughing at me. …and oh, he was. A round-eyed redhead girl that he could probably have picked up with one hand and little effort was leveling a shotgun almost bigger than she was at his head. I must've been quite an amusing little sight. The fact that he found the image hilarious made him bold and he strode up to me, close enough that the barrel of the gun was pressing against his stomach. His own gun, a simple revolver, was in hand and he gave a playful grin and pressed it to my temple.

"Now, then sweetheart...let's lower the gun, yeah?"

"Okay." I said. I lowered it a couple of inches and pulled the trigger. There was a shrill, deafening scream and the gun at my head dropped without firing as the loins and entrails of the gang member erupted in a spray of blood, bone, and gore.

Suffice to say, I was covered in head to toe with it and, in very quick form, the man died at my feet. I watched his body twitch, staring at the gun in my hands, at the body lying in almost two halves before me. My mind was completely broken at that moment. It wasn't that the act and image had driven me over the edge or into insanity...it had simply caused all thought to cease to function for a very long time afterwards. I had stood there for a good hour at least before a couple of the younger gravediggers came to see if I'd survived.

"Holy shit!" One of them laughed, "...you blew his nuts all over the place!"

I blinked and lifted my head in a languid motion to regard him, "...uh?"

"Dude, she's gone..." The other one said. The first shook his head and stepped over to me. The next motion was a quick snap of his palm against my cheek. The pain stirred my mental faculties just enough that I was able to shake off the shock-induced daze. I looked up at him almost angrily at the stinging pain in my cheek and raised the shotgun to him then, which he quickly grabbed and tugged away from me. It wasn't hard, given that I didn't even weigh 70lbs and had no upper body strength to speak of. They both gave a toothy grin and I was handed a long, wicked-looking knife.

I hefted it for a moment, examining the blade, but I knew what I was supposed to do. I knelt beside the head of the dead man and began carving...

The process took another hour and a half and flies were everywhere. I could hear almost nothing over the sound of their buzzing beyond the occasional gunshot as the two gravediggers ensured that I wasn't bothered as I worked. Once all was said and done, I held a bloody skull in my hands and there was a mass of ugly pulp where the head had been.

I handed back the knife and followed the two men, hugging the gruesome prize to my chest. They led me towards a burning light in the distance. Even with my only half-decent eyesight, I could see the figure of Papa Os standing beside a bonfire near a small collection of shanties and leaning against something. As he came into focus, I could see that it was a shovel he was leaning against.

I looked up at him, confused, once I was standing before him. He appraised my gory appearance, as well as the skull I was now clinging rather tightly to. I saw the pride and approval in his eyes as he handed me the shovel and plucked the skull from my hands. He stared into the vacant, grinning face as he spoke.

"Ya be scared t' die, Ani?"

I struggled to hold the heavy shovel, opting to dig it into the ground and lean on it as he had. I nodded honestly. Why wouldn't I be afraid to die? It seemed like a silly thing to ask.

He continued to regard the skull, "Death ain't no thing t' be scared of, child. It be jus' another step. A _higher _step. You will die, girl. Ya do know that, yea?"

"Well...yeah." I shifted my weight uncomfortably. The flies were still buzzing around me, attracted by the drying blood and entrails that still covered me.

"Why ya be scared of sometin' dat's gonna happen anyway, eh? Is like bein' afraid of th' risin' sun. Sun's gonna come up sooner or later. Why worry 'bout it?"

He looked to me then and nodded to the shovel in my hands, "Yer gonna dig through t' night, little Ani. Yer diggin' your grave, child. The sooner ya realize that death's gonna be comin' whether ya like it or not, the sooner ya can embrace it an' learn to control and strengthen that darkness coilin' in yer soul..."

The darkness...always such an afterthought for me. Since my powers had emerged, I'd infinitely preferred the fire, although Papa Os continued to encourage me to work on using the miasma and nether energies. I sighed and leaned further against the shovel, realizing that this was going to be a long night tonight and day tomorrow. He smiled down to me then, and took up a seat on one of the shanties nearby. At his nod, I grabbed the handle of the shovel and dug into the soft, moist earth.


End file.
